I am/am I an African? A relational reading of 'Diaspora and Identity in South African Fiction' by J.U. Jacobs

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Abstract

The publication of Diaspora and Identity in South African Fiction (2016) by J.U. Jacobs is a timely
intervention, in that it is the first comprehensive study of South African fiction to sustain the
argument that South African writing is always already diasporic. Although Jacobs' diasporic
framework undoubtedly serves as an important addition to the recent trends identified by
literary scholars, his focus on 12 well-established writers (including Coetzee, Wicomb, Mda,
Gordimer and Ndebele), highlights some of the gaps that need to be filled in a study of this
kind. For instance, what about the younger generation of writers, including those from
elsewhere in Africa who are writing about living in South Africa? How do they deal with what
has been termed the new diaspora, with debates around Afropolitanism and the experiences
of internal, inter-continental and trans-continental migrancy in an increasingly globalising
world? Despite these shortcomings, Jacobs' premise about the inevitably diasporic
identifications that are narrativised in the 20 novels analysed here can provide a useful
foundation for further scholarship on how the diasporic condition informs and is mediated in
other texts. These, as I will show, range from works by a new generation of emerging writers
on the one hand to the performing arts on the other hand.